After the End
by RisuQ-theQissilent
Summary: After gaining freedom from Aperture, Chell roams the land and finds she is the last human on earth. That is, until Whealtey is placed into a cybernetic body and escapes the facility. AU


Death. Destruction. Despair.

In the mere two weeks Chell had been set free from the facility, she had found all three when all she wanted was the opposite.

She thought that when GLaDOS set her free, all would be easy. She would step out of the shed, find a nearby city and adapt; maybe settle down, have a family and retire at age 60. Or at least, that's what she thought.

Her boots crunched through the debris in the abandoned city she was wandering through. What exactly happened to all the residents in the 300 years or so she had been locked inside Aperture Science? She saw nothing that could really give her a clue except the decayed-looking skyscrapers, the charred pavement, and the lack of any body, living or dead in the general vicinity. There was just nothing. She felt a chill run down her spine. So this was it. No other people. She was the last one. The human race would die out with her. She felt a dull ache in her chest upon realization.

She had the small hope that maybe this was the only city that was in this sad state, but as she continued to wander around, going from town to town, city to city, she found that maybe she wasn't so wrong after all. It looked like something out of an apocalypse movie, except this was no movie. She was living it right then and there.

Every city looked the same, just with a different flair. Buildings crumbled, covered by large and twisted vines bearing strange flowers and fruit (Chell was too scared to try any of it, though her stomach rumbled with hunger), animals roamed around, eating the various grasses that adorned the pavement, uprooting it and breaking it to pieces slowly over the centuries. It was amazing that such animals had survived over the centuries like they had. It made Chell wonder why people had all but died whereas the animals were still alive and thriving. She saw Deer nibbling at the grasses look curiously at her before wandering over. They seemed unafraid by her presence, and Chell knew she would have been able to stretch out her hand and touch one if a pack of wolves hadn't shown up.

It was terrifying, but she was armed with her portal gun and long fall boots. She was able to evade the onslaught, but the deer had fallen victim. As Chell watched the wolves tear apart the body, she knew she would share the same fate if she was not careful. But she also knew that was how she would have to live: by hunting other creatures. It left a dull ache inside of her, knowing she would have to kill other animals. (granted, she had "murdered" GLaDOS before, but that was mostly out of self defense.)

She remembered for the first several days she cried. There was nothing left for her to have come back to. GLaDOS gave her freedom for no reason at all except but to be alone. She would have to kill everyday for her next meal, scavenge for anything she could find, take shelter from bad weather, try and stay alive. But no matter how bleak everything seemed, Chell would not go back to the facility. Her hopes for a normal future might have looked terribly grim, but she didn't have a death wish. At least, not yet. But after the initial shock, she stopped really feeling. She would strive to survive for as long as she could, even if it meant she was alone. After all, she had been alone in Aperture for such a long time, she had to make herself realize she did far better on her own than with any other people around.

Except… there was one point when she hadn't been alone. It was…Wheatley…That stupid little charming personality core. That bumbling idiot had really done it; he had led her to take down GLaDOS piece by piece. She knew it would have worked too, if only she hadn't replaced GLaDOS with his tiny innocent core. What made her even think it would have worked? She should have seen the signs. The poor bastard, he was such a pure core. It wasn't fair. She never should have let him replace Her. And…Chell should have never let him go. Why didn't she catch him as he was sucked out into space? Now he was sharing the same fate as her. Only, his fate was thousands of miles away from hers. And, at least he had a companion… Chell had left the companion cube several cities ago; she wondered how she had ever thought it to have spoken, or have had sentience. It was just a stupid cube given to the test subjects to keep them from going insane. Not that she knew how that even worked or why she had put so much emotion and care into it.

Chell sighed, irritated at everything. She had been wandering around for weeks, and she was tired of it. Tired of walking by the same dilapidated buildings, the same darkened cities where life was once in full swing. Tired of thinking about Wheatley and his last moments—the moments where she could have saved him. Maybe he would have been here with her, keeping her spirits up with his idle banter. She was tired of feeling regret. She was tired of missing him with every fiber of her being. So tired of it. She sat down inside of a darkened office building on the front desk. The sun was setting, casting an orange tinge to the walls and glass panels. It was truly a sight to see; the silhouette of the broken city painted a beautiful scene when mixed with the sunset.

Hunger eventually got the better of Chell, and she knew she would have to kill for her food. She couldn't just rely on the vegetation that grew around the city; she was competing for it along with all the other deer, rabbits, goats and quadrepedal animals that lived in the vicinity.

But at that moment, Chell was too tired to continue. Her emotional distress finally spilled over, and she could move no longer. The next day she would go out and look for any sort of weapon that she could hunt with. As she shivered on the desk, she climbed down and went to go look for a closet with blankets or clothes that had perhaps survived the centuries of neglect. Maybe build a fire…or a shelter…but now, sleep…

…

"Do you know why I brought you back?"

"Is it because—"

"This may sound very strange, especially since it's coming from me, but, your fate to drift endlessly through space just seemed too _cruel_ for me to leave you out there."

GLaDOS's large metallic suspended body rounded on the small personality core—Wheatley. Her yellow optic was narrowed in quiet triumph. The core was suspended by a large robotic claw, helpless to the situation he was currently in. He quaked and shivered with fear, knowing silently that this was the end; he would die here and now, and never see Chell ever again…

"_Well…"_ She began, venom dripping with every syllable. "I thought of a better punishment. One that wasn't so _cruel_. I brought you back because I'm low on…" She glanced back at the two cooperative robots standing in the corner, who snapped to attention from whatever it was they had been doing. "…Test subjects. And I thought to myself, since I have so much spare time what with no one trying to murder me anymore, I could go and find my old Intelligence dampening sphere and use him; after all, I think we have an understanding by now on what not to do anymore. So, I've checked my resources, and I've found some old android bodies that this facility had engineered from a very long time ago. With some tweaking from myself, and some combinations with the human bodies the cooperative testing initiative machines found, I think it will be a fitting body for you. That way you can test. Forever. Well, at least until your new body is run down so much that you die. Whatever comes first, really."

Wheatley had not been listening, however, and his thoughts immediately drifted back to Chell, whose life he had made hell with his idiotic evil intentions. He was one hundred percent the biggest dumbass in the entire existence of everything. He had had everything! Chell listened to him, smiled at his stupid jokes, treated him well (besides the whole "not catching Wheatley." That was unfortunate, but he forgave her while he was aimlessly drifting through space.) and he had been on his way to freedom! But of course, HE had to go and screw everything up! He just HAD to become a tyrannical monster, bent on destroying everything around him. Why couldn't he have just started to the elevator, detached himself, and gone up with Chell? Then this terrible guilt he felt wouldn't have happened, and he would have been free with Chell. It wasn't fair! He never meant to do such things to Chell! It wasn't him! It was HER! Her stupid body poisoned him and made him into a monster! If only—

A jolt of pain brought him back to the present from his thoughts. GLaDOS's giant body had rounded on him, and she seemed none too happy.

"Were you even listening, moron? I just unveiled your fate for you, and I expect you to at least acknowledge the intense amount of suffering you will be doing in a matter of minutes." Her angry banter did not increase in volume, but got darker as she spoke it. Wheatley, terrified even more by now, resolved himself to merely nod, hoping that would satiate her.

Her optic became dangerous; Wheatley was very glad looks could not destroy. If they had, he would have been killed several times simultaneously at that moment. Before he could speak up about anything, the claw holding him suddenly swung, throwing him through the air toward the two robots in the corner.

The orange optic'd one caught him, stumbling under the force of impact. The blue-eyed one looked up at his companion in mild worry.

GLaDOS's loud voice spooked them both and they scuttled to attention. " Blue, Orange, take the moron to the procedural room and begin the transfer. Don't look at me like that. Go."

The two robots hurried off, not wanting to anger the massive computer lady any further than she seemed at the moment.

Wheatley jerked about, not sure what was to happen to him in the next several minutes; was he going to be killed? Or worse, was it Android hell? He shuddered, hoping he wouldn't be brutally killed in a terrible way, and braced himself as his two escorts burst into a room with a dead-looking human on a table. Wait. Why was there a human hooked up to the Aperture Science Personality Transfer Machine? No. No, no, surely he wasn't going to—

His carrier scurried over to a port by the body and plugged him in. She then promptly turned around and huddled near her companion; both looking on to see what would happen next. Wheatley felt a sense of dread inside his tiny processor. He was going to be turned into a smelly human…

"Please don't tell me I'm going to be a human… please, no they're so smelly—" Wheatley began to plead.

"Alright. I won't." Came GLaDOS's cold reply from the PA system.

Wheatley heard a click from somewhere, and felt electricity pulsate through him. It was maddening, tearing his circuitry up and rifling through his processor. He felt as though his metal hull would rip apart from the stress and strain. Finally the intense pain forced a scream from him before everything inside his tiny body promptly shut down.

**A/N: what you're reading right now is something I did for the portalkink website on Livejournal. Posted here cause I thought I might share the love(?)**

**The prompt was essentially… hell, go visit the site. I'm not going to give away the plot of this quite yet. It's on page 5 of the portalkink website. (link is in my profile)**

**(Sorry for not updating anything else, especially Wanting More and Be Human. I am full of guilt. But this prompt was unfilled! It was practically criminal! So yeah. Excuses, excuses.**


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